


What Happens

by quicksparrows



Series: Side by Side – Chrobin [19]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being Grima's vessel is a terrible truth, but there had been so many clues; any tactician worth their salt could put them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens

.

 

 

It's at the foot of the Mila Tree, meeting the Voice, where Ada gets her last clue.

Being fair, she's still raw after discovering the truth about her parentage, and in that fragile state she could believe anything anyone. In a matter of two months she's gone from being a modest wife with a new child (and the incumbent queen of Ylisse) with no history to being the lost "princess" of Plegia, daughter to its regent King and high priest, and the mother of a second daughter — the future of her first — and, oh gods, juggling that with the Valmese conquest and the looming potential of Grima's return.

That's a lot.

Still, she's been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Ada almost laughs when the Voice looks at her and says "you're just like me." She almost says: "great, what's one more responsibility?" She almost says: "nice try, but I don't hear the voices of dragon-gods." She almost says: "yeah, that's all I need right now."

She doesn't say any of them. She ignores the comment, and so does everyone else, too caught up in gems and sacred things and the relentless, looming march of the future.

It's later, when she is stripping for bed and watching Chrom do the same, that her eyes settle on his brand and she thinks: _Oh._

And then she looks at her own and remembers what the Voice had said. She thinks: _Oh, SHIT._

"Gods, I just figured it out," Ada says, and the hollow in her stomach feels like it could swallow her up. She watches Chrom turn to look at her, his expression perfectly serene until he sees her face.

"What's wrong?" he says immediately.

Ada can't help it, seeing that face on him. She tears up almost immediately, and she sinks to sit in the nearest chair. Chrom rushes to her side in long strides, dropping to kneel before her and grasp her hands. His palm glides over the back of her Brand. 

"Ada?" he repeats, so concerned.

"I'm Grima," she says, tightly. The first tears roll, quiet and hot. Her mind races. "I just... figured it out. I become Grima. That's what happens."

"No, no," Chrom says, assured, "Ada, you're not Grima."

"That's what this means," she says, gently tugging her hand from his. The purple of the brand is almost luminescent these days, as if coming to _life._ Chrom looks at her hand with a frown. "I don't know how to explain it," Ada says. "But I'm Grima's host. It explains the dreams. Validar... Validar intends to use me to resurrect Grima, who sleeps inside me. That's what it is."

"No," Chrom repeats. "Look, it's been a long few weeks, and today's been ––  _Ada._ You're under a lot of stress. Listen, pretty much Plegian wears the Eyes, and lots of them have tattoos –– even Henry has them, Ada, so the mark doesn't have to mean anything."

But Ada knows it's true, because she dreams of killing him.

Over and over again, she goes through the motions of the dream as if leashed to the path. She and Chrom face Validar. She and Chrom destroy Validar. She destroys Chrom.

Time and time again in the dream she wishes to crawl to him, to beg him to open his eyes, but she never does. She's glued in place, seat against stone, fingers warm from the crackle of lightning magic and her chest heaving hard. She feels a darkness pooling in her gut, coursing through her veins, tearing through her skin until even her eyelids hurt. There on the floor, she is subjugated.

Before now, she had never known what it was. She thought it was just a bad dream, a bad omen. 

Now, she knows it's because of _Grima._

She looks at the sinking look on his face. She watches it fall, just _looking_ at her. He inhales deeply, resolutely.

"It's okay," he says. "Listen to me… there's no reason to panic."

Ada thinks of the way Lucina had embraced her, how it had been nothing like the emotive display she'd given Chrom. It was distant somehow — a stiff hug, a glance between her and her father. Chrom had been momentarily embarrassed — _I'm sure she's stressed, she's overwhelmed, maybe she's just a bit of a daddy's girl. It's everything going on, not you and her._ Ada hadn't been so sure. In her mind, it was the mark of something hidden.

She had felt in herself a slow, trickling paranoia: the dark future, her missing memories, her true parentage, and now a daughter with a measured trust for her. Ada had been right to think _something_ wasn't being said.

"We're going to figure it out," Chrom says. "If it is true –– and I'm not saying it is –– we're going to do something about it. I promise."

Ada lets out a long, shaky breath.

"What if we can't stop it from happening again?" Ada says. "What then? Grima wants to destroy the world..."

She's going to _kill_ him.

Chrom pulls her in closer, wrapping her in his arms so tight that her trembling shakes him, too. He gets a hand to the back of her head, fingers forked through her loose ponytail, and he clutches her to him.

"You don't have to worry about that," he says. "Not at long as I have anything to say about it."

Ada presses a palm to his chest to push him off her, but it's right around the point she knows she will — COULD — stop his heart and rend his lungs to blackened tatters and burst his stomach and—

"Ada," he says, over and over again until she stops struggling, stilling save for the way she shakes in his arms. "Shhh."

She can't even form words. She just trembles, breath hitching here and there, her fingers clutching the front of his shirt.

She bursts into loud sobs.


End file.
